Little 3 - 6 .

  3.                                        4.
   rootless  berry  picked up     rain that constantly offers
  ,shoreline,  another day,  over ,          garment

  5.                                        6.
    inside,                              what offers patience
   back to the window,                      ?      future
    outside,                                  offer
                                                   things

untitled Russian translation

I shall leave for some remote Northern city,
Squatting, I will smoke a roll-up,
I’ll be pricked  by a dear friend accidentally,
He will sob over me when he sobers.

I know one cheerless place in medieval Rus,
Where cheerful people live for the day,
To stay there is scary, to leave is to lose honour,
To  gulp spirits - for soul; and to pray - into darkness.

What rivers are located in taiga,
What vastness unfolds in the morning,
Local women roam them and fugitive lifers
Are raising horizons into the third power.

Let me go, you. I’m alive only barely,
I’m nobody’s forever, a Judas, a psychopath,
I am not in deep sorrow, but the gloomy, dark fir trees
Promise a certain deep sorrow ahead.

Boris Rizhy (1974-2001). Translated by Olia Grebenyuk

Poplars

Wind in the poplars talks
when left alone
caught quick by branches
sitting 
for a minute,
empathising with ravens
whilst the big black shadow surfs high quick wind – 
                        (like the rugged tug of the ocean).

Green crowns
atop heads of bark
that scream when you burn them,
a little boy stood too close
and embers glowing in the iris soon stung – 
                       (forever to remember those poplars
                        that he can no longer see).

This is what they say
secretive and close 
embraced next to the beating heart 
hear roots pull water
straight from soil
flow back down with it
to witness the fossilization
of a million dead
drawn between layers of poplar leaves
like lines on a chalkboard
tell the teacher how the slate was formed – 
                       (but she won’t understand
                        that poplars talk
                        so I won’t talk either).
                        

Peace only when eyes are closed
carved in the belly
a seat,
as the wind in the poplars whispers –
                      (hear this, another story).

Alexis